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Public Sector Unions Are Very Different From Private Sector Unions

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner A strike in Chicago and New York City; rallies of tens of thousands in Wisconsin; politician walkouts in Indiana; attempts to change the constitution in Michigan — these events and more featured government unions and their leaders at the forefront of the recent battles over public policy.

As a recessed economy dragged down state expenditures, governors and legislatures increasingly looked to trim from the fattest part of government: Public-sector employees. Salaries and pensions that saw government workers being compensated far more generously than their private-sector counterparts were finally beginning to be addressed.

While it would be easy to classify this battle as between those who are “pro-union” or “anti-union,” a distinction should be made between unions in the private-sector versus the public-sector counterpart. Historically and in modern-day practice, these are two very different things.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, private-sector unions are allowed to extract dues and fees from workers if the employer is a unionized workplace. The NLRA, passed in 1935 during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term, does not, however, apply to public-sector employees, including state and federal workers, because the thinking was that this would over-politicize government and cause a conflict of interest between unions and politicians.

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Bloomberg’s Ban Prohibits 2-Liter Soda With Your Pizza And Some Nightclub Mixers

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Photo Credit: Angel ChevresttTake a big gulp, New York: Hizzoner is about to give you a pop. Nanny Bloomberg unleashes his ban on large sodas on March 12 — and there are some nasty surprises lurking for hardworking families.

Say goodbye to that 2-liter bottle of Coke with your pizza delivery, pitchers of soft drinks at your kid’s birthday party and some bottle-service mixers at your favorite nightclub.

They’d violate Mayor Bloomberg’s new rules, which prohibit eateries from serving or selling sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces. Bloomberg’s soda smackdown follows his attacks on salt, sugar, trans fat, smoking and even baby formula.

The city Health Department last week began sending brochures to businesses that would be affected by the latest ban, including restaurants, bars and any “food service” establishment subject to letter grades. And merchants were shocked to see the broad sweep of the new rules.

It’s not fair. If you’re gonna tell me what to do, it’s no good,” said Steve DiMaggio of Caruso’s in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. “It’s gonna cost a lot more.”

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New York Army Vet Facing 7 Years In Prison Over Empty Ammo Magazines

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Photo Credit: WGRZ-TV An Army veteran in New York is facing up to seven years in prison for possessing five empty 30-round ammunition magazines.

Nate Haddad told WGRZ-TV he was parked on a road last month waiting to meet someone interested in buying them off him when police approached. According to the station, the magazines were for an AR-15 rifle, the same type of weapon Haddad once carried in combat. Magazines over 10 rounds have been illegal in New York since 1994, unless they were manufactured before the law went into effect. Haddad says he thought his were legal, until he found out otherwise.

“I certainly did not think I was committing a felony crime by having these,” Haddad told WGRZ. “My understanding of what I had in my possession was that it was manufactured before 1994, but the arresting officers told me otherwise after I showed them the magazines that I had in my possession.”

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Report: Prosecutors to Pursue Felony Charges Against Ex-Soldier for Possessing High-Capacity Magazine

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New York prosecutors will pursue felony criminal charges against retired special forces soldier Nathan Haddad, who was arrested in LeRay, New York in January for allegedly possessing five 30-round AR-15 magazines, according to conservative law blog Legal Insurrection.

Prosecutors had reportedly offered Haddad a plea bargain that would spare him jail time if he admitted to five misdemeanors, according to Legal Insurrection. But Haddad’s attorney told the blog that Haddad, who currently works at the Department of Defense, will not accept the deal.

It is unclear how Haddad was arrested or discovered with the magazines.

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Texas Runs Ads Telling New York Gun Owners to Move to the Lone Star

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“Texas is better than New York, and New York just gave us another excuse to say that,” [Attorney General] Abbott, a Republican, said on Thursday, after ads extolling Texas appeared on several media websites.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, signed sweeping gun-control legislation earlier this week expanding the state’s ban on assault weapons and putting limits on ammunition capacity in the wake of last month’s school shootings in Connecticut.

Abbott, a possible candidate for governor of Texas in next year’s election, used campaign money to buy ads on websites of news organizations in New York City and Albany.

One ad says in classic Western script: “WANTED: Law abiding New York gun owners seeking lower taxes and greater opportunities.”

Clicking on the ad leads to a Facebook page touting the virtues of Texas, including the fact that the state has no income tax so “you’ll be able to keep more of what you earn and use that extra money to buy more ammo.”

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Liberal Paranoia Reigns in New York As Police Lock Down School, Search for Nerf Toy (+video)

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NEW YORK- A lime-green Nerf toy gun caused an hours-long lock-down at a Long Island school on Tuesday.

A 911 caller told Nassau County Police she saw a suspicious teen at about 7:38 a.m. Tuesday wearing a black jacket and carrying a black backpack at Elmont Memorial high School in Elmont.

The caller said he was also carrying a lime green gun.

A SWAT team searched the school room by room.

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Two-State Party: Nearly 30% of House Democrats from CA, NY

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Democrats and the mainstream media have tried to paint Republicans as a regional — and predominantly Southern — party of white males, but nearly 30 percent of Democrats in the House will come from just two states — California and New York — when the next Congress convenes.

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) on Wednesday said to “take a good look when the House convenes after this next Congress is sworn in” to see that the Republican party has gotten “white and more male,” while Democrats are “majority minority and female.”

But a University of Minnesota study found that when the 113th Congress convenes, a whopping 29.4% (59 of 201) of Democrats in the House will hail from California (38 members) and New York (21 members).

The study analyzed 83 general election cycles dating back to 1850 and discovered the “Democratic Party now comprises a larger percentage of Californians and New Yorkers in the U.S. House than at any point since California joined the Union.”

According to the study, “even though California and New York are two of three most populous states in the country,” the number of representatives from both states has “remained flat over the last 50 years.”

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Video: Muslim Parade in NYC So Outrageous, Liberal Democratic Senator Leaves

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On a beautiful September Sunday afternoon, not far from the scene of the infamous Islamic jihad attack in lower Manhattan, Democrat New York State Senator Tony Avello came face-to-face with Muslim hatred for America and he did something that few people have the courage to do. He got up from his seat as a VIP Marshall of the 27th annual New York Muslim Parade and stormed off the stage in disgust:

Obama’s race-card gambit

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While Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s “back in chains” remark in front of a largely black audience on Aug. 14 definitely can be considered race-baiting, based on the Obama administration’s reaction, it was more an off-the-cuff embarrassment than part of a calculated effort to rile black Americans and engender fear.

Not that there isn’t an effort on the part of the Obama campaign to do so. There most certainly is, and we can count on it to intensify as this presidential campaign wears on. I asserted some time ago that the 2012 presidential race would be “the race card on steroids,” but not necessarily through Mr. Obama’s campaign demonizing his opponent via accusations of racism. A photograph of Mitt Romney’s father, George, participating in a civil rights march in Grosse Pointe, Mich., in 1963 already has become practically iconic in conservative circles and no doubt will be at the ready should race come into play against candidate Mitt Romney.

The reason Camp Obama will continue to foment racial discord is, quite simply, the reason it has done so since 2008. The radical elements with whom President Obama was politically aligned before seeking the presidency were aware of the latitude they likely would enjoy were Mr. Obama to become president. This included black nationalist factions such as the New Black Panther Party, with whom he demonstrated in 2007, as well as the Nation of Islam. Their activities since Mr. Obama was inaugurated bear witness to this fact.

The significance of Mr. Obama keeping such bedfellows cannot be understated. This differs from the case of Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who is merely an America-damning racist. It has been documented that the Weather Underground, which Mr. Obama’s comrade William Ayers helped found, once advocated killing off 25 million Americans in order to make its point to the remaining 200 million. Outfits like the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) literally view whites and Jews as manifestly evil, if not subhuman, and the NBPP is calling for armed insurrection and the genocide of whites right now.

Analysts and even news junkies are aware that extemporaneous exposition is not Mr. Obama’s strong suit. From Cambridge, Mass., police having “acted stupidly” when they arrested his friend, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, in 2009 to Mr. Obama’s “you didn’t build that” remark this summer, he’s demonstrated a proclivity for getting into trouble when he goes off the teleprompter.

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Undercover Video: NY union bosses – “$112 million in green jobs is ‘bulls__t’, but we’ll take the money”

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If you want to understand the idiocy of green jobs, this is a must-see video.  A word of warning: you’re going to hear “bulls__t” a dozen or so times, but that’s because the union bosses are talking about green jobs where people can get paid for doing digging holes and filling them back in.  It gets really good at 3:18, so stay with it.

Photo credit: aflcio